We are joined by author Sarah Crossan to talk about her new verse novel, Gone for Good . It is a read in one go thriller about the troubled teen industry. Sixteen-year-old Connie is kidnapped in the middle of the night and taken to a 'behaviour modification programme' at Silver Lake and quickly gets drawn into the mystery of where missing resident Belle has gone to.

We also talk about Sarah's thoughtful posts on social media about putting away our screens and reading for pleasure.

Sarah can be found on Instagram here.

And here are some of the books we discuss:

Gone for Good

Toffee

The Weight of Water

One

Where the Heart Should Be

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In part 4 we hear more about what we should be doing to address the decline in children’s reading for pleasure. In this episode we focus on approaches in schools and how to involve staff and pupils in creating a reading for pleasure culture.

For this series we interviewed the following people (not all feature in every episode):

Dapo Adeloa - Author and the illustrator of many books including Look Up!, Clean Up!and My Dad is a Grizzly Bear.

Sita Brahmachari - Author of many books including Artichoke Hearts, When Shadows Falland Phoenix Brothers

Dr Darren Chetty - Lecturer at UCL Institute of Education and author, with Professor Karen Sands O'Connor, of Beyond the Secret Garden

Professor Teresa Cremin - Professor of Education and Co-Director of the Literacy and Social Justice Centre at The Open University

Charlotte Hacking - Teacher Engagement Lead at the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Pedagogy and Research and Curriculum Lead at Herne Hill School

Jenny Hawke - Children's Librarian and Chair of the Youth Library Group

Tom Palmer - Author of many books including Angel of Grasmere, Resist and War Dog

Glynn Palmer–Bell - Assistant Director of English at Castle View Enterprise Academy, Sunderland

Louie Stowell - Author of many books including the Loki series, Otherland and the Dragon in the Library

Sabrina Sulliman - English teacher at Southfields Academy, South West London

At the end of the series we will invite comments and ideas from listeners so look out for how you can contribute to the discussion.

Many thanks to everyone we interviewed and to our Co Producer Belinda Naylor.

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For the National Year of Reading, we are sharing a series of short conversations with people who are involved in promoting reading with young people. This could be a programme, resources or a literary event, and we're giving them the opportunity to share what they do and how people can get involved.

In this episode we are joined by Tanja Jennings, who is the joint Northern Ireland Representative on the Youth Libraries Group.

Information about the Carnegies can be found here.

Information about the Members' Fest can be found here.

The Youth Libraries Group recommendations on Bookshop.org can be found here.

And if you are interested in The Youth Library Review or newsletters, you can get more information from ylg.newsletter@gmail.com.

Tanja Jennings write a blog, Good Night to Read, about books and reading which can be found here.

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